INBOX ASTRONOMY
NASA's Roman to Search for Signs of Dark Matter Clumps
Release date: Wednesday, January 17, 2024 11:00:00 AM Eastern Standard Time
The Roman Space Telescope’s fine resolution and panoramic views will allow researchers to examine streams of stars pulled from globular star clusters.
Let’s start with a miniature scene: As dancers delicately glide across a stage, they pull silk streamers that loop, swirl, and snake through the air. Now, expand the setting and performers to a cosmic scale, where the stage is a galaxy and the tiniest “dancers” – globular clusters – play the leading roles. These small, tightly bound spherical groups of stars orbit far more massive galaxies. Continually, stars from globular clusters are pulled away and those stars begin to curve and “twirl” in new orbits around the larger galaxies in ribbon-like shapes. In some cases, holes then get punched through those streams by clumps of a yet-unknown, unseen substance – dark matter.
Astronomers plan to use data from the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope to hone in on these globular cluster streams, potentially of our neighboring Andromeda galaxy, to look for gaps created by passing clumps of dark matter. What they learn may deepen our understanding of this mysterious, major “ingredient” in the universe.
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